


Blue

by MsMay



Series: My DCU [3]
Category: DCU
Genre: Angst, Family, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10106825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMay/pseuds/MsMay
Summary: Dick Grayson is lingering in the empty wake of a burned out year. All he wants is to get it right, once, to just do right by his brothers one time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the song Colors by Halsey: 
> 
> Your little brother never tells you, but he loves you so. You say your father only smiles on the TV, so, you're only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope. I hope you make it to the day you're twenty-eight years old. 
> 
> Everything is blue.

Dick sits alone in a stock furniture apartment, with the lights out, that still smells like pine resin, and orange citrus floor polish from when the building’s complementary cleaning service came through last, which, when he thinks about it, must’ve been a few weeks ago. This place still smells because it sees less traffic than the West Bank wall, he’d know, he’s been there. Theoretically the cleaning service comes every week, but why clean an apartment no one ever sees, or mucks up. An empty cereal box in the trash is easy to ignore.

Dick sits alone, and he puts his head into his hands. The white carpet bellow his feet smells like glue.

This apartment has great big windows. The blue light of the moon and the yellow light of the streets fight it out in his living room, until everything has an almost-green tinge that Dick likes because it makes him sick, and so he never stays up late when he has the chance.

Dick sits alone in his apartment. He feels bad about calling it his apartment. He only keeps it because . . . He doesn't really know. He doesn't live there, not really. 

He feels bad about yelling at Jason.

That was the last time he spoke to someone. Twenty minutes ago, he yelled at Jason when Jason came to talk, and it was so rare. So . . . vulnerable. In the green light of his apartment, Jason looked very young, a bit like he had at his funeral. And that sort of thing always scared Dick. The funeral. The uncomfortable suggestion that life and death neither look nor operate like they should. Like everyone pretends they do. So Dick had tried to pretend that everything wasn’t green and sickly and ambiguous, and Jason yelled back, because Jason understands. Jason hates the pretending. Dick thinks that Jason probably hates him for all the pretending he does. Because Dick wasn’t supposed to pretend. He was supposed to be Jason’s big brother, his guardian, the one who would be his quiet, stalwart, ally, no matter what. And yet Dick still pretends. Still yelled.

Now Dick sits alone in his apartment, shaking. The springs beneath his seat don’t recognize their master’s body, and prod up at him as if he is a usurper. They must have some image of what their master would look like, and it is not Dick. It could not be this fragile man, playing hero, breaking everything as he goes.

The door to his apartment creeks open.

“Jason-” Dick starts, turning his head from where it had rested in his hands and-

There’s Jason. Just as young, and green as he always looked in Dick’s nightmares.

“Dick?” Jason says.

Jason: a boy in a robin costume who has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Who is looking at Dick with such fear and vulnerability.

_I don’t know if I can-_ Jason had said to him once.

_Listen, you’ve got what it takes. Trust me, I’d know. You’ll be fine,_ Dick had replied.

And now. . .

“Richard . . .”

No. Dick’s rational mind takes over and pulls him back. He just saw Jason. Jason is a grown-ass man now, and is as far from Robin as a man can possibly get.

“Damian, sorry, Jason was just here. I thought he might have come back,” Dick says. Damian is practically clinging to the door, half hidden behind it with his eyes turned down. “Come in,” Dick says.

Damian does, but he pulls at his cape so that it covers him, and shields him. He reminds Dick of the grey taste his dreams have acquired. All of his dreams are that infinitesimal ash that floats in Batman’s wake. Damian approaches with small steps, lingering ever few inches on some other part of his apartment. Maybe it’s the boxes that never got unpacked. Maybe it’s the freakishly neat arrangement, so unlike what Dick leaves behind in his room at the manor.

“Richard,” Damian begins again, and oh, this is now Dick knows that Damian is really upset. He only calls Dick ‘Richard’ when he means to be polite, and the pain of death could not press Damian into civility as long as he thought he was in the right. Pride of a god. Well, what Robin didn’t have that? They were all just a little quieter about it. That’s why they all liked the night. The moon doesn’t melt wax wings.

“Damian,” Dick says. Damian stalls out. He has not looked at Dick once yet, but this time he makes a valiant effort, out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m sorry for disobeying orders, but I thought-I saw and then, you were-” His voice hitches, in a tight little sob that he tries to swallow back with a stiff sniff.

And that’s when Dick remembers he yelled at Damian too, much earlier in the day, much earlier, before he left Gotham to go back to Blüdhaven. And this time when he looks up at Damian, and he sees Jason, the effect isn’t just some delusion. He sees so many painful parallels now, the pride, the intense, heretical, strength of their up-turned heads. They feared no God. Jason came in like a war orphan, Damian came in like a child-soldier. And now as Dick looks at Damian he has the crippling fear that Damian will leave just like Jason did.

“No, no, it’s okay, I mean it’s not okay, but I don’t . . .” Dick doesn’t know what he’s trying to say. Damian sniffles again, and wipes at the corner of his eye.

“I’m sorry. I know I am disobedient. I can be better though, I can be, I-”

God, Dick doesn’t even remember what he said when he yelled at Damian.

“Damian come here,” he says. Damian trots over to stand in front of him. He is so _small_ , Dick realizes. Dick used to think that Tim was small, the fleeting wisp of a heart broken too many times, but Damian. Damian is such a child.

“No, come here,” Dick says, grabbing Damian’s wrist and pulling him into his lap. For a second Damian sits tense against him, as if he thinks that Dick might hit him at any second.

Then Damian says, “I do not mind that you are Batman.”

Dick has to swallow back his knee jerk response. Instead he takes a second to formulate his thoughts.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

“It’s okay,” Damian says. The tears are back in his voice. He curls up a little tighter. One of his boots presses sharply against Dick’s thigh but Dick ignores it. “I don’t mind, it’s okay. I just- you should stay- because I can, I can be good at being Robin, and then you can be Batman and you don’t have to go.”

Dick can only hold him tight and shush him gently as Damian begins to shake.

“I’m not leaving,” Dick whispers, even as a part of his gut churns, and he realizes that yes, maybe, he will have to leave all of his family behind one day, and even the primrose way won’t make that everlasting bonfire hurt less. Dick holds no illusions that he’ll go to heaven. Even if offered a place, he won’t go without his brothers. He doesn’t think he can ever be forgiven unless they are too.

“I’m sorry,” Damian whispers, clinging to the nylon of Dick’s Nightwing costume. His fingers can’t really get a grip, they just scrape against his chest, until he gives up, and hugs himself. Dick holds him a little tighter, pressing his face to the top of Damian’s head. He hums tunelessly and wonders if maybe Jason would be better off if Dick had bothered to hold him like this. It wouldn’t have been the same, he was never that much bigger than Jason, but still, maybe . . .

“I just worry about you Damian. When you don't listen, I don't know what's going to happen to you. I know you’re strong, but I worry. That’s my job,” Dick says. Damian nods, and curls up a little tighter. His shivering has stopped, but he makes no indication that he’ll be moving any time soon, and that’s alright. Dick doesn’t have anywhere to be, and the light in his apartment might be green, but there are blue streaks along the ceiling, and gold inclinations along the floor. So maybe the air in between is no good, but he has beauty to bookend his life.

“I don’t want to stop being Robin,” Damian says.

“No Robin does.”

“But I-”

“I know. And you won’t have to stop now, or any time soon, one day you’ll have to stop being Robin.”

Dick thinks, as he pulls that thought right out of his ass, that maybe it’s true. Maybe that’s what he’s been holding onto for so long. Maybe he thinks too much about what he could have done, and not enough about what he’s going to be.

“I don’t want to leave,” Damian says.

“I know, I know it's hard, but you know what? I’ll be excited when you do. Damian, I can’t wait to see what you become,” he whispers.   

Damian shakes again and hiccups half a sob.

Dick pretends he doesn’t notice, while he holds his little brother a little tighter.


End file.
